This week in the Archive Services searchroom…

It’s been a busy week, with readers from Italy, Australia and the USA coming in. One reader, American PhD student Julia Cummiskey, is here every day to look at the scientific research of Professor Haddow (reference DC68).

Professor Haddow was a scientist who spent a large proportion of his life working in Africa, becoming a leading expert in viral diseases. His papers capture the painstaking work he did to understand mosquitoes and their relation to diseases such as yellow fever. The many hours spent catching and counting mosquitoes is obvious just looking at the vast number of notebooks that document the work. The collection also contains some slides that were probably used for a presentation which show various graphs as well as some beautiful images of his time spent abroad.

Another interesting aspect of Professor Haddow’s papers is that they give us an insight into his outside interests, which were completely different from his work on viruses. Haddow was an expert on Piobaireachd, a form of music unique to the Great Highland bagpipe. As well as notes about the form, there are also maps that link certain sites with certain types of music.

The diversity of the collection is testament to a remarkable life; Haddow’s papers will be of use to scientists, historians and musicians alike.

2 replies

Interesting item on Haddow – perhaps you could tell the visiting student we have some Haddow objects here in the Zoology Museum – drawings of monkeys and some game heads. Just in case this is of interest.